Hemel is Hemel Hempstead, the director’s hometown, which was a planned community. Danielle Dean places the history of Hemel Hempstead in dialogue with a horror and science fiction film shot on location and explores the relationship between the two.
Hemel is a personal essay that combines science fiction and documentary to explore Hemel Hempstead, the director’s hometown and a symbol of British modernist urbanism – a post-war attempt to rethink the city and the community. This may also be why the B-movie The Strange World of Planet X was filmed there in 1957, about an alien entity that infiltrates human minds with sinister thoughts, echoing the anxieties of a space moulded by social engineering. Between the planned utopia and the disenchantment of an unforeseen socio-cultural complexity, Danielle Dean plays a character composed between herself and the film’s detective, linking real and fiction, past and present. With archive footage, 16mm filming and extraordinary sound work, the film constructs an anachronistic universe that both elucidates and deepens the mystery and ghosts of a small town with modernist promises. (Margarida Moz)
Danielle Dean (b. 1982, Alabama) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the geopolitical and material processes that colonize the mind and body. Dean has developed commissioned projects with the Wellcome Collection, London (2023) and Performa 21, New York (2021). She has presented exhibitions at ICA San Diego (2023); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2023); Midnight Moment, Times Square Arts, New York (2023); Tate Britain, London (2022); The Whitney Biennale, New York (2022); and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2018). Dean holds a Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts, and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
